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Naturally Fine Tuned for Life - A Defence of Metaphysical Naturalism

roosh

I've written a paper on the fine tuning argument and would welcome any thoughts or comments. Ideally, I would like to get it published in a journal, so if anyone has any specific feedback in that regard, I would greatly value it. I've set up a feedback session on PhilPapers, if anyone is interested (or just comment here):

https://philpeople.org/access_tokens/jER4FejVn_R3v8xJi3NIEHHO6XDvzH-xP03PWquKoyVyTwTvGGIPXpzHu151Og1rzZ6-zO67ZTfaG63BAGvAnQ

This paper attempts to demonstrate why the theistic Fine Tune Argument fails. However, if the key assumption of the FTA is granted, it is possible to infer a Multiverse.

https://philpapers.org/rec/COLNFT-3

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Peregrinus

The question I'm asking is not whether the multiverse hypothesis and the Creator God hypothesis are equally preposterous. It's whether they are equally unscientific.

I'm asking this with respect to the hypotheses themselves, not with respect to your characterisations of those who advance them.

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119918598#Comment_119918598

I'd disagree with this. While neither multiverse hypotheses nor claims of God / Intelligent Design are supported by empirical evidence, much of what is claimed by those advocating the mythology surrounding the God / Intelligent Design hypothesis is directly contradicted by empirical evidence. e.g. the age of the planet Earth, Noah's ark etc... Over the course of time, an increasing number of claims made by Christianity as being literally true have been dismissed and are now considered allegorical. With respect to intelligent design (not capitalised), it does not imply or even support the notion of a Christian God. The mice in the Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy for example provide another possible solution for intelligent design.

Similarly, if we have many unsupported hypotheses that we consider tenuous does this imply that they are all equally preposterous? For example is the belief in the tooth fairy or the flying spaghetti monster or the mice in Hitchhiker's any more or less preposterous that the belief in the Christian God, Allah or Vishnu? If we allow for a scale on how tenuous varying unsupported hypotheses are, how are we to graduate such a scale?

Lastly, most of those proposing a multiverse hypothesis do it on the basis that it is a philosophically derived possibility as opposed to hard fact or indisputable truth. Those proposing God / Intelligent Design do it on the basis of supporting a pre-existing belief system which they do consider indisputable truth.

Hotblack Desiato

Well, no, I don't think you are. I'm not putting a multiverse hypothesis forward as such, just saying that as long as we can't rule it out (and how would we do that?) it renders the notion of a universe being fine-tuned as not all that special, there could be any number of universes.

I'm multiverse agnostic-apathetic I suppose.

Peregrinus

But, then, it seems to me that the multiverse hypothesis for explaining the existing of a universe capable of supporting us is just as speculative, just as faith-based, as the God/intelligent designer hypothesis. In both cases there is, and can be, no empirical evidence by which the hypothesis can be verified or falsified. Neither can claim to be more scientifically respectable than the other.

Or am I missing something?

Hotblack Desiato

Well, that's just it isn't it - we can't know because anything outside our universe cannot possibly be observable. We can't know whether the fine-tuning argument is being postulated for this one and only universe, or just one out of numerous (possibly infinite in number) universes. In the latter case the anthropic principle applies - of course everything appears to be just right to create the universe we observe, because we are here to observe it. Just as the hole fits the puddle. But there could be any number of 'failed' universes out there too.

Looked at another way it's like saying "Isn't it amazing that everything on Earth was 'just so' in order that humans could evolve" when (a) the evolution of humans was far from pre-ordained in any non-theistic view (b) it's looking down the wrong end of the telescope. Now that we know there are vast numbers of potentially Earth-like planets out there, there must be a large number of planets where complex life could evolve.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119911099#Comment_119911099

How could we possibly know? Genuine question.

Seems to me that anything we can empirically observe, directly or indirectly, is not another universe; just a remote or exotic part of our universe. We can postulate that other universes exist, if their existence provides an answer to otherwise hard-to-answer questions of cosmology, but we can never empirically verify that they do (or do not) exist because, if we could, they would not be distinct universes.

(Unless cosmologists use "universe' to mean something different from what I understand it to mean. In which case, what does it mean?)

Hotblack Desiato

Is this the only universe that has ever, or will ever exist, or just one among a possible multitude of universes?

roosh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119843375#Comment_119843375

Probably wise if there's no valid response.

Just for posterity. The reason the puddle analogy doesn't work is because for puddles, water fills a hole and takes on the shape of the hole. The size of the hole doesn't matter, the water will take on the shape of the hole regardless. In this analogy, the existence of the water is a given, its presence isn't dependent on the dimensions of the hole.

With regard to the fine tuning argument, life is not something that is poured into the Universe, it emerges from it. The fine tuning argument takes the position that if the parameters of the Universe were ever so slightly different, life would not have emerged because gravity would have been too strong/weak, atoms would not have bound together, etc.

In the context of the puddle analogy, it would be like saying water only appears in holes of a certain size and there is a very narrow range for a water permitting hole. The water would have to emerge from the hole (not be poured in). Varying the dimensions of the hole would mean that there would be no water.

robindch

*gives up*

roosh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119815807#Comment_119815807

That's the issue. That's why the puddle analogy doesn't work, because the initial conditions of the Universe do have something to do with the emergence of life.

robindch

the problem with the puddle analogy is that the emergence of the water in the first place doesn't depend on the initial conditions of the hole.

The origin of the water has nothing to do with the puddle analogy.

magicbastarder

why not make your argument here?

roosh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119813598#Comment_119813598

While I agree with the sentiment, the problem with the puddle analogy is that the emergence of the water in the first place doesn't depend on the initial conditions of the hole.

If the nuclear forces weren't what they are, for example, atoms wouldn't hold together.

Hotblack Desiato

Douglas Adams dismissed the fine-tuning argument far better than I ever could:

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/70827-this-is-rather-as-if-you-imagine-a-puddle-waking

“This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.”